Not necessarily so. I can think of three or four people on this board alone (myself included) who are cancer survivors. While it's true that there is no known "cure" for cancer, we have reached the point where it is no longer necessarily a death sentence.

Thanks to regular checkups and tests, like pap smears, PSAs, mammographies and colonoscopies, we are more vigilant and can therefore catch the disease earlier. The earlier it is diagnosed, the better the patient's chance of survival.

Olivant made an excellent point. Because cancer can attack any and every part of the body, each type of cancer is almost treated as a separate disease. That's why the field of oncology is so very important.